Nik Peachey, British Council

This activity can be used at any level from elementary up. The aim of the activity is to get students talking about people's lives and homes using pictures as prompts.

At lower levels it can be used to practice present simple in the third person. For higher levels it can be used to practice expressions for giving opinions or for using modal verbs for deduction. It can be used at any level to teach or revise a wide range of vocabulary or just as a warmer to get students talking.

Preparation
You'll need a collection of 8 - 10 pictures of rooms without people in and a similar number of pictures of people. You can either cut these from magazines or download the ones below from our website.

Pictures of rooms >> 680k zip

Pictures of people >> 339k zip

© All images are copyright Chris Tribble, King's College, London University and used with his kind permission.

Procedure

• Tell your students that you are going to show them a number of pictures of different rooms.
• Put the students into groups and give each group a picture and ask them to try to guess what the person / people who live in the room are like. Ask them to try to think of ten things they can guess about the person by looking at the room.
• For students who find these kinds of activities more difficult you could give them these questions to answer. 

• Once the students have looked at one picture get them to change pictures with another group and repeat (You can do this just once or more than once).
• Once the students have discussed some of the pictures try to get them to tell you about the people who live in the rooms. With higher levels make sure you ask then to justify their answers.
• Once each group has told you a little about the rooms, show them the pictures of the people. Ask the students to try to decide which person lives in each room. The students can either work in their groups to do this or as a whole class. Be sure to get them to justify their answers.
• Once they have decided together tell them if they are correct.

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